Java packages

Summary: Further develop techniques for packaging Java libraries for Debian, describe and apply them

Required skills:

Good Java skills

ant

maven

Good in Debian packaging

Motivated to get a few more science applications in

Description: Java has made quite an impact on software development in Bioinformatics. Taverna [1], Artemis [2], Jalview [3] or OBO-EDIT [4] are all depending on a plethora of jar files. And those jars are then shipping with the source code. This effort shall describe existing concepts for package Java applications with Debian and develop them further to help with e.g. version dependencies to unversioned .jar fies and the parallel installation of multiple versions. The project will help Debian in many ways. The most obvious way may be completing a set of libraries used in Open Source developments. But also a better guidance of developers towards Java packages will be much appreciated and will help attracting more maintainers to the distribution. Finally, the effort also helps the development of those applications since the effort to install the infrastructure is reduced.